Testing on multiple mobile devices is costly, time consuming and the default Android emulator is notoriously slow. So, what should we do? That's easy - start using a properly fast Android emulator.
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When developing Android applications, you have to keep in mind all the different Android OS versions and various screen sizes and resolutions. The main objective before releasing an application is to find bugs and design imperfections.
Default Android emulator
The great thing about using an emulator for development is that it gives you an opportunity to develop applications without having a real Android device. The default Android emulator comes together with the Android SDK and can be found in the 'tools' folder.
So far so good, we have our cake, but can we eat it? The answer comes about 5 minutes after we hit the 'Launch' button. Go grab a coffee. Have breakfast. Come back. Wait another 5 minutes. Maybe even more.
Although I am not supposed to be shock as M1 Chip is not Intel Chip, because it is an ARM Chip, I am still SHOCK, recollecting the days where Android Emulator is too slow to even bother using it.
1) Why is the Android emulator so slow? 2)How can we speed up the Android emulator? I have got a 2.67 GHz Celeron processor, and 1.21 GB of RAM on a x86 Windows XP Professional machine. My understanding is that the Android Emulator should start fairly quickly on such a machine, but for me, it does not. Hi, I honestly don't know for Android emulator on PC, but on MacOS, I can tell you this is horribly slow to load the app AND use the app. In your case, if it's only about loading time, then I guess 30-40s is ok. But if it is also while using the app on the emulator, then you should consider this documentation or either buy a recycled Android device. Accelerating Android emulators on macOS. The following virtualization technologies are available for accelerating the Android emulator: Apple's Hypervisor Framework. Hypervisor is a feature of macOS 10.10 and later that makes it possible to run virtual machines on a Mac. Intel's Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM). Hello, I recently installed Mojave Hackintosh on my Desktop computer. Everything seemed fine until I run an XCode project, the simulator is impossible to use, and it slows down the entire computer. The same thing happens with the Android Emulator, the one that comes with Android Studio.
Finally - the emulator launches, only to show how slow it actually is.
All these performance problems stem from the fact that it emulates an ARM processor so it can run the actual code of your application. It accomplishes that by providing dynamic binary translation of the device machine code to the OS and processor architecture of your development machine.
Basically, it does a lot of mumbo-jumbo to pretend it's an ARM processor - when actually it isn't.
OK, it's slow. So what can we do about it?
- Well, first, we can help our CPU out by delegating the rendering process to the GPU by checking 'Use Host GPU' checkbox in AVD's edit window. The screen should now look better and be more responsive. That's because the CPU is not dealing with the tedious work of doing rendering anymore. But, that's still not fast enough.
- We can download Intel Atom (x86) images and, while we're at it, download Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM, for Mac and Windows only). This will enable virtual machine acceleration capabilities of the Intel CPU (for more information check this link).
Now we're getting somewhere, once this baby starts up, it should run fast and smooth.
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You could say that this level of speed should be sufficient. That may be true, but an issue with the Intel x86 images is that you don't get Google Apps, they only come with ARM images. This is important if you're testing an app that uses GMaps, or Google Play Services.
So, as we've seen, ARM images aren't fast enough even with hardware acceleration. And emulators don't have the Play Store. What now?
Genymotion by Genymobile
Genymotion is a new, fast Android emulator developed by the French company Genymobile. It's based on the open-source project AndroVM, and the first beta version was released back in June.
It runs on all major platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux). For now it's freely available, but there is also going to be a paid version.
According to AndroVM blog, the free version will be feature-rich, and the paid version will be intended for large companies needing a higher level of collaboration on Genymotion.
How to use it?
Genymotion relies on Oracle VirtualBox to work (version 4.1 or above). So...
Download and install VirtualBox. For Windows users it's not necessary to install VirtualBox separately, because it is available from the Genymotion site, bundled with the Genymotion emulator.
Go to Genymotion website and sign up. You'll receive a validation mail, so just click on the validation link to proceed.
Download and install the Genymotion emulator (the current version is 1.1.0).
Start Genymotion. You might need to configure path to your Android SDK location in Genymotion settings (probably if you've installed SDK in a non default location). Since this is a first start, there are no devices. Click on 'Add' and download new device. To see available devices, write your credentials in the pop-up dialog and click 'Connect'.
Select the device and click 'Start'.
It starts quickly and is insanely fast! It's a little awkward to start the emulator separately, but Genymotion provides Eclipse and Android Studio integration through plugins, also available on Genymotion website. To use the plugin, you have to provide a path to Genymotion installation and Android SDK, as well.
OK, it's fast. Is that it?
Well, for me, the sheer speed of Genymotion is what got me using it in the first place. Which is kind of funny, because in the first version you couldn't even rotate the device.
But, alongside the speed bump, it also provides GPS, compass and battery control via some good-looking widgets.
Battery control widget
The GPS widget even provides GMaps for selecting mock locations, which is really nice for testing location based apps.
Device angle control and Play Store
Through the Genymotion shell it's also possible to control the device's angle (accelerometer), but it would be cool to control it using a widget, something like the Windows phone emulator does.
Genymotion devices with Google Apps also come with the Play Store preinstalled. This comes in handy if you want to test an app from the Play Store quickly.
Multiple screen sizes
Multiple screen sizes are one of Android developer's worst nightmares. There is a huge number of different screen configurations of Android devices.
Genymotion, as well as the default emulator, offers custom configuration of device's screen. In the list of available devices, select the device for which you want to change screen configuration and click on the monitor icon on the right side. Then simply select one of the predefined screen resolutions or create your own.
Be careful when choosing resolution, because you may end up with something rather strange…
Where it comes short
The main setback of Genymotion is that it only provides devices with API version 16, 17 and a preview version of Android 4.3 (API 18). If we take a look at Google Dashboard, we'll see that Gingerbread still holds about 33% of all devices (API 10).
So, for testing on that platform you still need either a default emulator or real device, which kind of defeats the purpose of Genymotion as a testing platform.
And there is no camera, which I don't miss, but could be really useful.
In the future, we can expect even more features, like taking screenshots or video screen capturing (which would be great for making demonstration videos). An accelerometer widget would be cool, and even a camera would be nice, but we can only wait and see.
Final thoughts
Well, you can never really get rid of real devices, because you'll always want to test an app on a real device before releasing it. But during development I recommend using a Genymotion emulator. Even though it doesn't cover all major Android OS versions. It's fast, stable, the GPS sensor manipulation is awesome and with the device rotation feature added to the 1.1.0 version - it's truly the way to go.
Also, deploying apps is almost instant and that can save you a lot of time when you're doing small changes to the app. But you have to watch out since the Genymotion emulator runs faster than real devices themselves, giving you a false impression of the performance of the app.
Always test on a real device!
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Android Emulators are a great tool to run Android Apps on PC. There are a great many Android Emulators available in the market. However, slow performance of Android Emulator can ruin that experience.
Slow performance of Android Emulators is a recurrent issue, especially BlueStacks. BlueStacks is one of the most popular Android Emulators there is. But it isn’t the most convenient piece of software to use. BlueStacks is highly demanding and heavy on PC.
Then, how are we supposed to fix it? How to Speed Up BlueStacks or any Android Emulator for that matter? Continue Reading to know how to speed up BlueStacks.
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How to Speed Up BlueStacks or Any other Android Emulator?
1. Make Sure you are Using the Best Available to Speed up the Android Emulator
No, we aren’t talking about the best piece of Hardware or CPU. Making Sure that your BlueStacks is updated to its latest version can help improve the performance of the software noticeably.
The latest version of BlueStacks is BlueStacks 4 i.e. on the date of writing it. You can check for the latest update from the app itself or you can simply visit BlueStacks.
2. Update Drivers to Speed up BlueStacks
Graphics Drivers have the most evident impact on the gaming experience. If your BlueStacks software is running fine but the gaming doesn’t seem as impressive as it should, an outdated Graphics Driver can be the issue. In order to update graphics drivers:
- Search and Open Device Manager from the Start Menu.
- Search for the Display Adapters from the list.
- Click on it and expand
- Right Click on Graphics tab and click Update to update the drivers.
3. Allocate More System Resources to Speed up the Android Emulator
If BlueStacks is running slow on your PC, it may be because of the insufficient allocation of RAM and CPU Capacity allotted for BlueStacks to function.
In the recent updates, BlueStacks has started to include the option to manage the system resources allocated to BlueStacks Android Emulator. In order to Speed up BlueStacks, you can increase the amount of resources assigned to BlueStacks. To do so:
- Open the emulator.
- Then click on Settings on the top right-hand corner of the screen.
- Again click on Settings to open a new window with all the different settings.
- Click on the Engine Tab
- Manage RAM and CPU Cores allotted to BlueStacks to Function Properly.
4. Turn Off the Antivirus for the moment to Speed up the Android Emulator
Not all us have PCs that are equipped with the best-in-industry specs. We use average PCs with average performance and some Antivirus Software can be heavy on the system. Even if you are using a lightweight Antivirus Software, it won’t be a bad idea to close/pause the Antivirus tool for the moment while you are using BlueStacks to haul down the workload a bit. This can instantly boost the system performance and help speed up BlueStacks.
5. Turn Off Background Processes
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Similar to Antiviruses, there are a lot of background processes that can hamper the performance of your PC in general and can be the reason behind BlueStacks running slow. In order to speed up BlueStacks Android Emulator, you can stop these background processes in order to give your system a quick boost.
Turning off the Background Processes can have an instant impact on the performance of BlueStacks on your PC.
6. Use PC Optimizer Software to Speed up the Android Emulator
PC Optimizing Software are created to help increase the performance of your PC in general and free up memory and CPU being used from the unwanted processes. This, in turn, has a direct impact on any software running on your PC and hence, can help speed up BlueStacks.
There is a plethora of PC Optimization Software available in the market. However, we suggest using Advanced System Optimizer to get the best out of your Windows PC. Let’s talk about Advanced System Optimizer in a bit more detail.
Advanced System Optimizer:
This Advanced System Optimizer is one of the most feature packed PC Optimization Software available in the market. Advanced System Optimizer can provide an instant boost to your PC Performance with the help of its extensive list of tools and perks.
Click Here to Download Advanced System Optimizer ($49.95)
- Memory Optimizer: Advanced System Optimizer comes equipped with a Memory Optimizer tool that can help free-up System RAM by clearing unwanted background processes and cleaning junk.
- Game Optimizer: It also features a separate Game Optimizer which is intended to provide an instant boost to system performance before playing games or running software that are heavy on the system.
- Driver Updater: The Driver Updater helps keep all the system drivers updated automatically. Keeping the System Drivers up-to-date helps maintain optimal PC Performance.
- System Cleaner: Sometimes it isn’t the background processes that cause the system to slow down but the accumulated clutter and junk files. Advanced System Optimizer features a System Cleaner that automatically gets rid of all the junk and clutter on your system to speed up PC Performance.
With all these amazing features and much more, Advanced System Optimizer is truly the real deal and can surely help speed up BlueStacks performance. To know more about or download Advanced System Optimizer, visit Advanced System Optimizer.
So, this was all from our end on how to speed up BlueStacks. Do let us know if you tried these hacks and solutions and if they helped speed up BlueStacks, We love hearing from you.
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